UserConnect - the simplest remote access solution by a Forefront TMG business partner

The Challenges

As a fast growing company, the IT department had to provide access to an increasing number of applications for its customers, employees, partners and suppliers. Deployed on multiple platforms such as local PCs and terminal servers, IT found itself spending an increasing amount of time managing platforms and deploying change control to user-connectivity profiles. Moreover, changes to user-connectivity profiles could take days to appear on user desktops. The IT team was looking for a way to simplify management and deliver applications, of any type, to employees and partners.

The customer was also looking to provide users with secure and simple remote access to internal applications. Non-IT professionals did not find it to be an easy task to set up the initial connection to client-based and SSL-based VPN solutions, and to establish a secure connection. The IT department had to invest many resources in supporting these users. Moreover, many times users and partners had to connect to internal applications from PCs that the customer’s IT had no control over. In such cases, if the remote user was not defined as an Administrator on the PC, or was not allowed to install any software or executables, it was impossible to establish a secure connection.

The Solution

Simplified user-connectivity management- The SlickAccess UserConnect user-connectivity management solution provided a customer with a simple way to define, manage, and enable users to access their applications, across the enterprise. Using UserConnect, the IT department can define and manage a list of applications and quickly assign them to users and groups according to business requirements. The IT department can change user-connectivity profiles and relay these changes in real-time to users, without requiring any logout/login or restart processes. Users equipped with the UserConnect Profile software on a USB flash drive or PC can authenticate and streamline their profile, allowing them to connect to remote and local applications, regardless of the underlying platform.

Simplified remote-access- the customer utilized an already deployed Microsoft ISA Server VPN solution to provide simple and secure access from remote networks. UserConnect was configured to automatically establish a secure VPN connection following user authentication and streamlined user-connectivity profiles to users. The solution was also verified to work with TMG.

Business Benefits

Real-time user-connectivity change control- Using UserConnect, the IT team can now create user-connectivity profiles and change them in real-time. Users receive a toolbar containing the applications they are allowed to run. The permissions to run these applications are set by IT, and they run on various platforms. The customer can change the applications listed on a user’s toolbar, in real-time, without requiring the user to logout and login, or restart their computer.

This allows the company to reduce user profile management time and costs, and to demonstrate an increase in user productivity by providing users with a real-time, simple, and consistent way to access their applications.

Secured, simple and consistent access from remote networks- UserConnect integration collaborates with any VPN solution. Its tight integration with Microsoft’s ISA Server solution allows users to use their UserConnect Profile to securely connect from any PC. Users do not need to be Administrators or to download and install any software. This reduces the resources required by IT to support remote users and partners, and further increases user productivity, by enabling users to work from any PC, both securely and efficiently.